Visioning Beneath the Almond Trees

by tatiana de la tierra

The shamans shuttled us to a grove of almond trees for a 4-day, 4-night silent vision quest. They placed us each beneath an almond tree, far apart from each other. Here, we would commune with nature, sleep upon the earth, pray and meditate. We were instructed to put an altar at the eastern entrance of our space and to hang our tobacco prayer ties around the four corners. A tiny ceramic replica of Venus del Valdivia accompanied us, along with a cornhusk-rolled tobacco, which we had swept four times through the fire at the base camp. The fire, which would be tended to at all hours, would reflect our states of being and would alert the fire keepers if anything came up.

We were to live off of two apples, one pear, one avocado, one corn on the cob, a miniature chocolate bar, a handful of almonds and a gallon of water. We would pee on the ground and, with the little plastic shovel provided, we would dig a hole in the earth for bowel movements. Two in the group of ten women were menstruating; they were to bequeath their bloods upon Mother Earth. We were told to wear skirts for ceremony and not to read any books.

I wondered how many rules I’d break, and if I could make it through even one night.

As the sun set behind the mountain, I scrambled to get my space in order. A bright pink piece of plastic was the “floor” of my “house”, which consisted of a twin air mattress, a sleeping bag and travel pillow, a duffle bag for nightclothes and another for day clothes. I also had two mochilas, one for health and beauty aids/writing tools and the other for my altar. Though we had only minutes to prepare, I skillfully crammed quite a lot of stuff to bring with me, leaving nothing to chance.

It was around 8 pm after I’d finished setting up and changing into flannel pajamas. With just a bit of daylight left, I set out to make the hole for going to the bathroom. It was to be deep enough to last all four days. I walked all over, crunching dry leaves and twigs in my path, searching for just the right place to squat. A place with a view, yet out of sight, and without spiky bushes and vines in the vicinity. There were many options, but all my attempts were futile. Dry, hard and rocky, the earth was impenetrable with a little plastic shovel. If only I had a pick and a sledgehammer, maybe I could swing it. Instead of one deep hole, I made several shallow ones. Yet I wondered if the other women were able to dig deep into the earth, and if I was just a lazy, inefficient, shit-hole digger.

Vision Quest Realization #1: I don’t know how to dig holes and am pretty clueless about appropriate tools for this or other means.

When I got back “home” it was too dark to set up the altar, which was next on my to-do list. That’s when it hit me that there was Nothing to Do. Except lie down and look up at the sky, through the lattice of treetops. Which is what I did. A lot. For hours and hours, wide awake. And there I discovered an entirely fascinating, seductive, magical, unending world. The world of night, of mysterious creaking sounds, fireflies, twinkling stars, planets, and that thing called the moon, which was plumping up dramatically and journeying across the sky. I believe it’s called enchantment. I was under the spell of the Night.

Vision Quest Realization #2: Nothing to Do leads to Everything Else.

Disoriented at daybreak, I had no idea where I was, or what I was doing with all those leaves in the landscape of the sky, until I remembered that I was in an almond grove somewhere in Chile on a silent vision quest. I had to get up to go to the bathroom.

Getting up—exactly how was I going to do that? This was the deep and recurring philosophical question of every day and night. Would I roll off the air mattress to one side and spring up from my knees? Not a chance. Pull myself up entirely using my core stomach muscles? Yeah, right. Hold on to the tree for support while I inched up? Impossible. Roll flat on my face and hustle on upward? Good luck with that. Getting up off the ground—that was an event, every time. I thought about it a lot, attempted it a few times, and after a while, just did it Somehow.

Vision Quest Realization #3: You better do some serious Pilates, girl.

I went looking for my bathroom holes but never found them, and had to dig new ones.

It’s a good thing I had all the time in the world to set up my altar, because it took a ton of time. Compass in hand, I was committed to putting the altar exactly at the eastern corner. Yet it also had to go with the setup of the tree, the rocks, and the “house”. It took three tries until I finally settled on the right spot. Not being able to “feed” the altar with candles and sage (we were asked not to light any fires since the area was so dry), I offered rocks, flowers, water, and a played a little harmonica, rang bells, and rattled. But were my sacred musical sounds violating the code of Silence?

Vision Quest Realization #4: Silence is a state of being, not an act.

Throughout the day, I sought shelter from the sun and the heat. Hoping to make my supply of food last, I sought fruit from the trees. Restless and unable to sit on the floor for long periods of time, I wanted to stretch my back and move around. And so it was that I would be the only one to walk freely up and down and around, eating blackberries, plums and grapes, resting on the tops of huge boulders, and chilling out in a tiny patch of jungle that I found on a path off to the side.

Vision Quest Realization #5: In nature, all things are possible.

My surroundings came to life the more I walked around. At first, I saw blobs of brown earth, mustard yellow leaves, dry and blackened tree branches. Everything seemed about the same. Later on, I could distinguish between one tree and the next. I found berries where, before, there were none. I noted the red plums that I had passed by every day without realizing it. I could see almonds, rocks, plants, spiders, lizards, ants, and, at times, little bits of trash on the floor. Rocks began to speak to me. Then, walking around went from being an act of fleeing from something (the heat, etc.) to an exercise in observation and discovery.

Vision Quest Realization #6: The more I consciously open my eyes, the more I see.

The heat, my lifelong nemesis, invited me to be in my natural skin, practically in the nude. Which was perfect except for one thing: carnivorous yellowjacket wasps.

Vision Quest Realization #7: When in nature, nature rules.

In the heat, and in silence, I was delighted to discover the Wind, which speaks lightly with rustling leaves or loudly like the roaring ocean. The wind that blows through my hair and shakes everything up, that scatters pollen and seeds and knocks yellowjackets about. The wind that refreshes and enlivens.

Vision Quest Realization #8: The Wind!

Nights with my altar, smoking a cigar for my ancestors, I connect with my personal path. This is where I keep things to myself, where my past comes to me as my visions for the future unfold. It gets so cold late at night that I put on the pure wool and cashmere layers to safeguard me while I dream.

Vision Quest Realization #9: Sacred tobacco clears the path and lures the images of my dreams.


Out in the almond grove, I wrote little songs to the earth, moon, sun, birds, to silence and to ayahuasca. The cycle of each day and night, natural as eternity, became magical as hell. I became a sky gazer, a moon worshipper, a sun watcher. A child of the stars.

Vision Quest Realization #10: Me loves being alive on earth.


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SHE: BIKE/SPOKE/LOVE. SHE: BIKE/SPOKE/LOVE.
Texas writer, performance artist and urban bicyclist Tammy Gomez is fundraising for the production of her bicycle theater play, SHE: BIKE/SPOKE/LOVE in Austin, Texas in 2012. A story about young people in an ethnic community who care about the future of the planet and the greening of the barrios, the play features spoken word with choreographed bicycling, a turntablist, and video projections. For more information about her project, or to make a donation, see http://xxcommunicator.blogspot.com/.

Atop the mt. - 4

[Last installment of what I call a quasi-vision quest. Read first installment here and the previous one here.]

The dog and I have three choices for where to bed down for the night. The first niche rests on a ledge surrounded by four-foot boulders, facing southwest; it offers the widest view, and I judge it exhilarating at sunrise. Problem is, it's so well enclosed, my dream-bears could unexpectedly come upon us in the dark, through no fault of their own. The second is on the plateau, but affords only bare rock for sleeping space, since large red ants have colonized everywhere else. So we take the third on the face of the mt., which provides some safety from oscine or insect. There's space enough for the dog and a smaller one for me to keep watch. I don't plan on sleeping; that's not what I'm here for. I take my last photo.

After securing Manchas's food high up a scrawny pine and my unopened crackers on a ledge where neither can be reached by Mr. Bear, and as the sun caresses the crest of the western mountains, I light my second cig and wait. For what?

Not unlike early Great Plains indigenes, to my rear I can see "Pike's" Peak, which is sometimes still visible all the way to the Kansas border. Unlike those first Americans, I wasn't drawn here by any belief or understanding of the Great Spirit embodied in that rocky mountain. I am very like campers and tourists who consider the area more suited for pitching tents and hill-climb racing. A crown on the eastern mountains faintly gleams of the urban lights of Colo. Springs. How far away have I really come?

But the dog and I are alone. We're so high up, no park noise reaches us, no porch lights, though throughout the night, jet engines and airliner's flashing lights high up too often pass over. As daylight leaves us, most of the birds cease their activity and communing. One last drink of water for both of us, to toast the coming night.

After maybe an hour of starlight my mind ceases dwelling on daily concerns. I don't need to worry, plan or decide anything about the house, the job, the truck or the world I left behind, even though only for this night. So what then will I "think" about? The brain requires something to occupy itself and exist, no?

Some time later I realize how "by myself" I truly am, and not simply in the sense that no one sits beside me. More, I'm not in a room by myself, surrounded by my electronics, furniture, paper and constructed walls, enclad by my modern man-ness, there's little here of creations or possessions of artificial making. I have the small thin blanket, clothes and bare necessities. No tent or sleeping bag to enclose me; I won't even make a primitive man's fire to keep away my bears or relieve the night chill when it comes--the closest I'll get to deprivation. I consider going totally bare skin, but am too civilized and don't want to shock Manchas.

So what's the deal about being alone out here? First, it's disorienting. The organic and inorganic that normally root you to society's concrete foundations are absent, and I miss them. Light waves of vertigo flow through me, as if I'm repeatedly on the verge of falling from lack of references to hold onto. I keep righting myself, and my mind grasps for reliable and familiar objects, purposes and goals, but they're not there. Right before the sensation threatens to reach a high level of anxiety, it stops. It will flash back later, but in minor, tolerable versions.

Now something else threatens: my heartbeat is the loudest thing about, no owl hoots tonight, no cougar snarls here. Silence seems to promise only boredom. Will I not make it till dawn because I died of that? How unromantic. How . . . boring.

Manchas stirs, twirls and circles to find better footing. He lies down and attempts to hold onto the slope with his nails to keep from sliding. He does this a few times through the night, but will succeed in getting much more sleep than I.

I take a swallow of water. It tastes incredibly good, more refreshing than I can remember. We're down to a quart.

I peer into the darkness under the trees where the stars don't reach. I imagine primitive man doing the same, with his survival possibly at stake if he fails to notice something. I remove my glasses to see as he saw and wonder how my genetic line made it through those times. With such poor vision, my ancestor must have easily qualified as bear food. Yet, I'm here, so survival of the fittest must not be the whole story. Pure luck played some part.

After awhile of the darkness-peering I look to the heavens. I haven't googled what I saw and don't plan to. At the time I assume it is some optical imprint from staring into darkness. Everywhere between the stars fills with a mosaic, that reminds me of Palenque inscriptions carved in stone there, but these aren't Maya. Mine are abstract, without characteristic design, lacking rational meaning. Their complexity, intricateness beg capturing, drawing onto paper that I have but won't use. Their beauty stays in my mind to this day. At some point they fade into the black of outer space. I assume I can make them appear again by repeating the process. I probably didn't have my vision, but I feel slightly exhilarated, anyway.

I expected the wind would kick up during the night, but it stays light, hardly reaching us, down as we are below the crest. A couple of gnats and horseflies visit briefly, about all the wildlife that makes its presence known to us. This will not qualify for an episode of Wild Kingdom.

The near full moon is high up now. At least I can see Mr. Bear if he tries making it down the two narrow paths to us. But I doubt we'll be entertained by that; it's too damn steep. Manchas rises, this time not just to find a better spot. He stares fixedly, to the crest looming above us, listening for something. It's nothing large or he would bark. Probably a chipmunk or such. He'll do this a couple more times tonight, again never barking. Just staring. Maybe wondering. He finds a new spot.

I can't find my own. I should have done more removing of smaller rocks to make a comfortable bed for the two of us. I take naps, but the mt. doesn't allow me more than a few minutes of sleep. My shaking knees awake me from what will be the last nap; they shake from the cold. They won't stop. I don the sweatshirt. It doesn't stop the knees. Then it's all my legs. I wrap them with the blanket. That doesn't work either.

I do the math. It averages fifteen degrees cooler here than the maybe fifty-five in the Springs. That means it's something like forty, maybe colder. No wonder I shake. The Boy Scout motto pops into my head. Dummy me may be prepared for a vision, but not for the mt.'s cold. I could locate wood to build a fire, but that might take me out of what we climbed so high to find. Now to see if a little temperature deprivation will help bring that vision.

Manchas of course isn't shaking. Curling up with him doesn't help me enough to make it worth tolerating his dog smell. He's my companion, comrade in this, but there's an olfactory limit to all friendships. The sweatshirt and blanket feel like they've lost their thickness. My shivering becomes uncontrollable. It's too dark, unsafe to go down to where it's undoubtedly warmer. After what feels like forever, I give up trying to control the uncontrollable and let the cold in.

My body is hallucinating. Not visually, not through any of the five senses. Some other way. Maybe it's an early frostbite symptom. Don't matter. I just shiver. My body feels different. Disconnected. Sighing. Restful. And then the shaking stops.

But the feeling doesn't. Where the cold and the mt. took me and my body, I don't know. It stays on, in me. Now weeks later, it's still here. Another place I can be, put myself into. It's good. How long it lasts doesn't matter. I'm certain I can produce it again.

And it's more than physical. I look at many things now as if I'm turned sideways, from an angle I think others might not see and that I didn't have before. I won't explain all of what I see from there, because it won't necessarily mean anything to anyone.

At sunrise I don't go atop the crest to check what Manchas had heard--no necessity of spoiling the mystery, though no bear was definitely a disappointment. But I know two things. In a sense, the mt. has physically beaten me. And I let that mentally beat myself.

We are leaving, but both of us take some of the mt. with us. Manchas is a housedog, but since then, every night now he's reluctant to go inside. I think he wants me to sleep outside on the patio with him. I don't know why I haven't yet.

On the other hand, the beating I, at least, took had its other side, as already described. I take that from the mt. when we head straight down its side instead of returning on the longer route. Several times we slide, fall, strike things, but manage to not break anything.

A couple we pass on the trail call us early risers. "We spent the night up there." They look at us disbelievingly. That's fine.

I'd only gone twenty-four hours without food and wasn't really hungry, but stop at the Hungry Bear in Woodlawn Park. I eat only half of the delicious breakfast and drank half the juice. I'm usually a pig about a great meal but deliberately don't go there this time. But, believe me when I say you've got to eat there--blitzes, pastries, home-style cooking like restaurants used to serve. Before our decline in the world.

We take Colo. 76 to avoid civilization for as long as possible. People warn me about delays because of flooding and "the fire." They don't know to warn me about my reaction to them. Miles of road and acres of black naked trees on both sides. You turn a curve thinking you've seen the last of it, and there's another mountainside's worth of burned tree and almost bare ground.

My reaction disturbs me. I don't think of destroyed homes, family tragedies, lost income, ugly devastation. I see Nature. Earth's life cycles. Equilibrium returned to imbalance. I can't find compassion in myself for the "loss" suffered here. What happened just seems right. Maybe that's the mt. in me talking.

I haven't told you everything of my quasi-vision quest because this piece is long enough. Mine obviously differed from tatiana's; hers reads of the real and the true believer. If you haven't yet, do check her post for something further out than mine.

I end with sitting out on the patio a few days ago. A hawk flies over Manchas and I, coming to rest twenty feet up in one of my trees. He stays for minutes, long enough for my wife Carmen to hear my yelling and come out to see it, so I wasn't imagining it. Hawk stays longer than you might imagine. He's wonderful. I see him again soaring on other days. I can hope he'll decide to nest in that same tree. Who knows--maybe the mt. sent him to remind me.

Not that I can forget.

RudyG

Up the mt. - 3

[Third installment of what I call a quasi-vision quest. Read first installment here and the previous one here.]

Except for Manchas's taking a crap on the way back down to the trailhead, our descent's uneventful. I wonder how he managed to take one, since he'd barfed up a stomach-full earlier. At least whatever he might have gotten from the pump water hasn't plugged him up. I assume he's tougher than me and certainly don't want our adventure cut short because of my dog's possibly daintier constitution; friends might say I used him as an excuse.

Repeatedly, as we retraced our steps down the trail, in the back and sometimes the front of my mind is one thing: bears. I'd been told they and the rarer cougar had been sighted in the area, but some of that might have been tourist-luring hearsay. Yes, bears make it even into Denver suburbs, and every few years a cougar wanders down our I-70 greenbelt, but we're to blame for pushing them out of their native habitat, which is where Manchas and I now walk. So, they probably won't be mauling us cause they've left to go malling.

I don't know if others "suffer" similarly, if it's just "racial memory" homo sapiens carries that surfaces in our bear-dreams, but over the years bear dreams always disturb my sleep more than my falling-dreams, no matter I've never seen one outside a zoo or circus, the kinds of places I no longer frequent. In any event, as we enter a heavily canopied trail sector, I find myself looking into the forest depths for bear. During the remainder of the trip, I'll continue doing this.

Park literature and my readings swear that bears are not aggressive unless provoked or accompanied by cubs, I assure myself, so I only need worry about the latter case, right? But in fact what worries me is that I keep reassuring myself. Where's that come from? As a sapient--and a relatively emotionally stable one--I should be capable of setting worry aside, given I've at least read considerable amounts about bear. I'm not ignorant. However, my head fails to function accordingly.

When I'm not searching forest shadow for momma and baby bear, I scan for scat, even though I can't differentiate between bear, cougar or velociraptor poop, other than possibly by size. More "racial memory" from millions of years prior to evolving into the sapiens species? Or do bears from past dreams represent more than introspection about my emotions, my personality? These cute questions keep entering my head, keep pushing other thoughts aside, making me question whether I can guide my thinking toward revelations that will indeed lead to, if not a real vision, at least considerable relief from my muddled, too familiar ways of thinking. When I ask Manchas if he's afraid of bears, I realize I ask the ridiculous; bears normally fear and avoid his type.

On the other hand, cougars don't; Manchas's type is traditional cougar cuisine. They're known to lure a dog away from others to where they ambush them. A friend of mine from Boulder raises Australian cattle dogs, and earlier this year the rest of his hounds brought him all that was left of one a cougar had cornered: its rolling head came to a stop at his feet. This is why I keep Manchas leashed all our time here. Despite his high intelligence--for a dog--he would run off after a big cat, thinking nothing about the difference in size from our pet felines back home. And I don't want him winding up like my friend's dog. After all, it was Manchas's mom.

Blogger Alice left a comment on my first installment of this venture: "Make sure your location is known." I take her advice and write a note I leave on the truck floorboard concerning where we're headed. I can't help leaving a potential last joke, though not my best ever: "If anything happens to me, I assume the dog will drag back my remains."

As prepared as we can get, the two of us veer off the trail, making our way up. Passersby below, peer up, possibly wondering what the hell we're doing. I try not to think the same. Despite not being as steep as a direct climb, the hill's pitch promises to be a challenge. The backpack's relatively light, the heaviest contents, the quart and a half of water. Crackers don't weigh much. Manchas's food does, which reminds me of La Bloga readers who advised not to put him on restricted intake; they're not here to carry it. It's mostly soil underfoot here and pine needles galore, but navigable, nevertheless. At least for the first few hundred feet and first half hour. Until it steepens.

We're not quite alone yet. Chatter from the trail below fades, with an occasional barking dog or revving truck motor dimly reaching us. Manchas's paws point uphill, and he manages it easily. I have to switch to stepping diagonally to keep solid footing and not slide from loose soil and ground rock underfoot.

Perhaps an hour later we've got into a rhythm, if you want to call twenty-minute stretches of climb separated by five-minute rests a rhythm. Real climbers, nonsmokers and fit, young people could do it better, but we don't care because they're not here. Our hearts beat strong, or maybe are being beaten, and I nearly forget the bears. I do forget about the lower level of oxygen we're taking in.

Manchas's tongue hangs low enough to lap at the pine needles, so we stop for a drink; he wipes his up, I take a swallow, which will be my regular portion throughout. The word stamina pops into my head, something to get us to the top, I think. I assume the dog's got it, and I need to somehow magically find it in myself. It's there, it's what always gets me through my day, my job, larger home-maintenance I take on. I will not forget that word.

Another hour later our goal appears no closer than when we began. We've been in the midst of thin forest. My walking stick serves like someone stronger alongside to assist old me through trickier parts of the path. Actually, the paths I expected we'd follow never appear. Nothing large like deer have left markings about, at least that I can see. No matter we're only a few hundred feet from where thousands of tourists tread, the dog and I are the disturbers of nature here, the space between the pines untrammeled until we mar its pristineness.

One other evidence of disruption is a cave-niche where fires charred three large rocks to warm the rare visitor. The soot makes me realize we've passed many blackened trees bare of leaves. Lightening, I finally realize. We're high up the type of terrain where Colorado's electrical storms leave loving evidence of their might. Might they while we're here? Right now it's cloudless above. Wind's constant, though never howling or rocking us.

In our third hour, a different word pops up: deprivation, though I don't know why. The climb hasn't been so demanding as to consider quitting. And I don't feel "deprived." So whence the thought? We don't deprive ourselves of rest; if anything, we stop more frequently and longer each time. I'm not tempted to crack open the crackers; going without food for even twenty-four hours is no biggie. Workaholics, of which I am one, do it often, simply out of negligence. Deprivation. Will have to think about that more.

We're high enough that we begin to see the tops of other mountains, even though the pinnacle of ours still lies distant. Breathtaking--at least when I can manage to draw one. Panoramic--though Manchas might be unimpressed. Solitude--turns out there are no cabins or homes visible from here. A great quiet--what I least expect--no sound of teeming wildlife, except for one or two small birds at a time.

I don't know if it's the fourth hour or what. Have no watch. Wife Carmen "made me" bring her cell, to keep her apprised of our safety. I'd tried it below, but no service. I'll use it at the top because she "made me" promise. She didn't realize how the out-of-touch factor heightens one's sense of . . . danger? Word doesn't fit. But something like that. Anyway, the phone likely can tell me the time, but I don't want to know; would mar the "primitiveness" of our walkabout.

Trees thin even more. Now they make their hold between large and larger rocks that increase in numbers, sometimes blocking our way. Ten feet, fifteen in size, they become obstructions that make travel harder and harder. Again, unexpected. Our pace slackens, sometimes having to backtrack to find better route.

Manchas's short four legs no longer rate superior to my longer two. And where before he helped pull me, I now lead, although it's futile to tow him. Eighty pounds of him don't come up easily, especially where a step of rock measures a couple of feet. He's starting to enjoy this less, I can see.

No hawks, though one soars in the distance, few flying insects, just some really big ants that I'll need to make sure don't nest under our spot come nightfall. Gotta keep away from ticks as well, for his sake.

Whatever time it is, however long we've gone, the boulders wear at my stamina. They're almost all we walk on and over; dirt, gravel and needles have become more dangerous, when we do cross them. Manchas likes this even less. A couple of times he resists following or jumps when I'm not ready, and I barely save myself from falling by ramming my forearms against or over a rock. Both are soon well scratched and painful, though not enough to matter. Pain is our word here. Muscles ache, head's throbbing somewhat. Maybe it's the altitude, too.

My brain's superior to his in finding passable trail. His vision seeks paths within a few feet in front of him. Mine peers further, anticipating, calculating, better planning which to take. We two have been this for tens of thousands of years. I do better at it; it's one reason I don't wear the leash.

Twice, Manchas gives me a "no" look, determined. He will not attempt to climb this rock or that path I'm trying to convince him is the best available. I'm tempted to give in to picking him up, but know he does too well at learning new routines. If I do it once, I'm dead; he will make me do it even when not required. Both times I'm forced to invent a totally different path or tweak one into finer and finer increments that he'll accept.

When we reach the edge of a rise that's drained us for I don't know how long, the relief from seeing there's only one mountain above us--ours--feels as if we've emerged from hours in a lightless cavern. We're beat. The top of our mt. is almost in sight, just a few more hundred feet. But the boulders in front of us will definitely not let Manchas pass. The two of us have come as far as we'll get, today or any day, unless I carry him, somehow. Fat chance.

There's service here, so I call the wife to let her know we're here, and exclude any negative information, like about my forearms. We probably have a couple of hours to prepare for nightfall.

The dog eats, wipes out the water I give him. A good swallow for me; the larger canteen's half empty. Maybe we don't have enough. But at least stamina's no longer required; we simply have to sit. Danger seems irrelevant; nothing about. Deprivation remains a possibility.

The crags we came for aren't visible unless we reach the top. That may have to wait for another time. Their majesty below almost frightened, and I admit relief at not having to learn if I can stand watch with them for an entire night. That might test more than a vision suddenly facing me.

We gaze, we stare, and breathe. The opposing mountain's nearly covered with pine. Essentially, we stand above tree line. It's too quiet to believe. Questing for a vision will start in a while, I suppose. For now, some rest, a smoke, a break.

RudyG

[This series ends in the next installment.]

Quest to the mt. - 2

The quasi-vision quest my dog Manchas and I were to attempt three weeks ago didn't happen. What begins below is my best recollection of what transpired instead.

As an over-60-year-old urban Chicano, I'd concluded my world needed an experience that would shake it up, since I've grown old in my ways, not all of which are conducive to living as one should. Habits, thinking, attitudes and approaches to life have turned as stale and predictable as the regularity with which my body loses hair on its head and deteriorates in places that functioned much better when younger. Those of you who've found yourselves not wanting to get up in the morning, for morning after morning in a row, know what I mean. I normally get up fine; it's plodding through the remainder of the day's reruns that's harder to stomach.

In any case, I wanted to do more than just get "away from it all" or "in tune with Mother Nature"; after all, either of these would have represented staid versions of the usual American Vacation. Taking a step into an otherworld, one not so Euro-American, seemed mandatory, notwithstanding the fact that I'm at best only one-fourth indigenous, supposedly of Yaqui and Tarahumara ancestry. I also recognized the limits of my body and resolve and wasn't about to attempt scaling a fourteener when I'd likely be forced to turn back before reaching its base.

For those unfamiliar with a real--not quasi--vision quest, Black Elk's The Sacred Pipe describes in detail what has been practiced for tens of thousands, on this continent, at least, by various tribes. Whether done as coming-of-age, finding one's animal or spirit, or as a cleansing one's soul, the end result is similar--to emerge changed. There's more to this than I can convey here; read the book.

A few days before we were to leave, I received word that our original scenario had to be postponed until fall, by which time I knew I'd get cold feet, literally and psychologically. So I looked for another mt. And found one. Where specifically is unimportant; what mattered was we would not have to postpone our adventure.

Like all canines, my companion Manchas bears his own mestizaje, in his case dingo via Australian cattle dog. His small red and blue spots are overshadowed by a huge black circle on his back, a part of the Dalmatian in him. (When he was a pup I could have sold him for big bucks as a "chick magnet.") But it's his less civilized parts that get twanged when we've trekked through the northeastern Colorado Comanche National Grasslands or followed the dinosaur tracks of Piñon Canyon in the southeast corner. This time, I opted for a more central location not far from Denver; couple of hours at the most, I thought.

Somewhat resembling the Blues Brothers, we hop into the truck with the bare minimum and head south, down I-25. I've got two packages of unsalted crackers, one sweatshirt, seven cigarettes and a light blanket requisitioned from an airline; Manchas has sufficient food to last him; we'll share a one-quart canteen of spring water and a bird feather wrapped in sprigs of sage, a send-off gift from a friend. Thyroid pills for me, and glucosamine to relieve his hip dysplasia, round out the provisions. The truck dash shines with "Check Engine", something I've ignored for weeks. The gas tank's half-full, but I totally filled the tires. And we're off on our adventure, somewhere without cars, people and the sound of civilization.

As I drive, I'm imagining what I'll need to search for once we reach the mountains, how that perfect mt. might be, possible dangers lurking. Manchas mostly peers out the windows, occasionally licking my elbow to indicate whatever that means in dog. I just finished rereading Wolf & Iron, and at least in wolfese, according to Gordon R. Dickson, an exchange of licks indicates peer acceptance. I'm not about to rise to Manchas's level, so I don't return the gesture. My head's still stuck in finances, job details and house upkeep.

On the opposite side of the highway a stranded motorist peers under his hood; I wonder if his "Check Engine" malfunctioned. Periodically, there's a road sign reading, "Remove all accident vehicles from highway. No exceptions." It reminds me that the last time I could get out of Denver in less than an hour was back in the 70s.

I step on the accelerator and push the four-cylinder, fifteen-year-old Ranger up to 62mph, given that the speed limit is now 75. Those passing me at 85 are unimpressed, I can tell from their sideways scowls. No matter I can get it up to even 68 on a down slope, I keep it steady; it's the most mileage-efficient the old truck will do.

It proves neither quicker nor easier to get away from civilization than to get my mind off it. A highway marquis emphasizes this in neon orange: "Accident at Lincoln exit. Alternate route suggested." Alternate route? There's no way to go south through Colorado unless you head far west into the mountains or a couple of hundred miles east into Nebraska; must be some highway workers' joke, of course. At the indicated exit, there's nada, except another of those signs about moving accident vehicles from the road. "No exceptions."


By now I've looked at the Check-Engine light more than ten times. What am I doing? Why? Sometimes when going faster than 62, it fades off. I try to see if it'll stay off if I keep it at 61 or 63, but I won't go above that. Sometimes it does, mostly it doesn't. But what am I thinking? That if it's off, there's actually nothing wrong with the truck? Duh. But why do I bother checking it at all. Its message won't change to "I was just kidding," or, "You'll be okay until you return home." And what good would it do if it suddenly said, "You have 14 minutes left." Hell--we're on an adventure; there's no turning back. Nevertheless, all during the trip I won't break the habit of peeking at it.

A few miles before Castle Rock, as I think we're maybe past it all and will soon reach our wilderness paradise, comes another marquis. "Accident 14 minutes ahead; keep to left lane." 14 minutes? Is that at 62mph or 85mph? And how do they know it's exactly 14? Ten minutes later, the four-lane superhighway morph-splits into two slow moving right lanes and two left ones choked with 85mph-ers who passed me earlier, now at a standstill. Seems most people followed the marquis' suggestion. Duh. Manchas and I breeze past them on the right.

According to the odometer, almost exactly at the 14-minute marker we do reach an accident site on the opposite side heading north. The first car has a quarter panel chewed up. The second car's whole front end is crushed. The third car, an SUV of course, sits upended, lying on its driver's side. A couple of patrol cars and likely witnesses' cars park at all angles behind the wreckage. Lines of vehicles behind all that move at no mile per hour.

Though I don't know the extent of injuries, I feel lucky and take the Ranger back up to 62, or probably more accurately, I feel smirky because I'm wondering why they're ignoring the "No exceptions" rule. Apparently, multiple-car devastation nullifies it. Conformity is a fleeting vanity; entropy, unavoidable. According to my speedometer, the six-mile lines of automobiles and trucks waiting for civilization to reimpose order will idly wait, long past the time Manchas and I have escaped. But I realize my attitude toward the personal calamity behind us means I haven't left it. Manchas licks the elbow, as if to absolve me.

We finally near Colo. Springs, home of "Focus on the (unborn) Family." I'm always creeped going through here, a place where conservative retirees constitute the local radicals. Books on immigrant rights, bilingual education and global warming are likely catalogued in the town library's fiction section. And home of the Air Force Academy, another bastion of the status quo.

I search for the exit listed in the park directions printout, but there's none. In total I will stop three times and it will take six people to repaint us in the right direction. But we're almost there; it won't be long now. But when we turn west, head into the mountains, we're last in queue for what looks to be a summer concert or something. Stopped at a light, I lean out my window and ask a cab driver why all the traffic. "Nope, no concert; it's always like this." This is the road to our quest?

Finally, finally, we reach a stretch of state highway with fewer cars. The remainder of the directions prove accurate. After turning onto a county dirt road, we pass a Mennonite camping compound where all kinds of Anglo kids romp around--a real vision quest?

In the parking lot at the trailhead, a sign out front of a trailer indicates the "camp host", Colorado's substitute for park rangers. I knock and a young woman with a dog twice the size of mine comes out.
"What's on the other side of this mt. on the left? Are there cabins or is it still park?"
"I have no idea."
"What about this one on the right? We're looking for a spot to get away from it all (sic)."
"I don't know."
"Is that way east?"
"I think so; the parks department didn't tell me a lot about this place."
It's like a comic episode from one of Ed Abbey's books, only not as funny and more pathetic. We've lost so much wealth in this country, we don't even know which way the compass points.

I decide we should check the regular trail first. Two and a half miles, moderately difficult, say the directions. It's fifteen degrees cooler here than down in the foothills, which at the moment sounds and feels great. I pump water for Manchas, to give him his last taste of civilization. We head up the trail. Fifteen minutes into the hike Manchas regurgitates the water and all of his breakfast, which takes several sweeps of my hiking stick to bury. I hope he's just got carsickness from my racing up the mountain curves at forty mph and not dog dysentery from the pump.

A river shadows the trail as we pass about a dozen people heading back. Two old ladies with cross-country ski poles, a family with youngsters--indicating the trail isn't that difficult--young and older couples toting light packs, an occasional loner, usually a fiftyish male, all of them Anglo. Most acknowledge us or at least say, "What a cute dog." I respond, "You should have seen him as a pup."

When the trail takes a hard, eastward curve, we've arrived. No one but us. And the rocks. Calling them rocks is an injustice, or at a minimum, an understatement. The crags have character, a quality of art, a powerfulness to them that almost intimidates, at least me. Manchas just gazes. Earlier, I'd thought scaling the crags might lead us to that perfect spot. I can see now that only a real vision quest would call for mounting these magnificent forms. It's not that they're unscalable, by someone more fit; they're too uncivilized. We will need to find a different spot. Besides, the better-fit probably do climb those crags, and we'd wind up with company we don't need.

Directly across the small valley, the other promontory appears not as intimidating, nor as picturesque, and thus less likely to draw visitors. Rather than trying to climb here, if we go back to the trailhead, I envision we can follow a much longer but less precipitous incline all the way to the top, until we get to where we can look across to the crags. Sounds perfect, and though it will be more strenuous, we should make it easily before nightfall.

Next time, up the mt.

RudyG